It was a quirky story in the US news media, and a national triumph in Moscow. Last Thursday, in the frigid wake of a nuclear powered ice-breaker, Russia sent two mini-submarines 13,000 feet beneath the Arctic ice cap, and planted a titanium-encased Russian flag on the seabed of the North Pole.
"The Arctic," declared expedition leader Artur Chilingarov, "is ours." And with it, Moscow hopes, a huge share of the massive oil and gas reserves under the melting pole.
Americans dismissively called it a "caper." But a quarter of the planet’s oil and gas resources may lie under the Arctic. Now, the U.S., Canada and more are bristling north as well.
Listen to On Point conversation about Russia at the North Pole and the sharpening edges of a global resource competition.
Have you been watching what’s going on in the Arctic? Is this the next very Cold War? Should the United States hurry up and plant a flag next to Russia's?
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Comments: 2
Meanwhile, we should concentrate on building nuclear power plants and oil refineries, drilling in Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico: as well as deregulating (and not clamping down on) domestic coal production. Also, solar power and the electric car have come a long way! That's why oil in the Arctic is no reason for the US to sign on to the sovereignty killing UN Law of the Sea Treaty.